Monday Mashup (5/16/11)

This is a link to the Area Votes in Congress writeup in the Philadelphia Inquirer from May 8th (not yesterday, which I’ll get to later). It’s late primarily because of last week’s Blogger kerfuffle.

There’s not a lot to say, though, except to point out that the House sent three measures to the Senate that have virtually no chance of becoming law unless Congress managed to override the inevitable (and justifiable) veto of President Obama in all three instances.

The first measure pertains to the HR 3 Chris Smith anti-abortion atrocity, including the truly vile “rape audits” (with unanimous Yes votes by all local House Repugs including Mikey The Beloved and No votes by all Dems except Tim Holden). The second measure concerns establishing the state-run health exchanges (same as above – if Holden had any guts, he would just switch parties and make it official), and the third pertained to school-based health clinics (which, for some reason, Holden supported…all other votes were the same).

One of the votes included an extension of oil industry tax breaks, including Yes votes from all House Repugs. The sole Senate vote was to confirm John J. McConnell, 52, as a judge on the U.S. District Court for Rhode Island (50-44, along party lines).

And as long as I’m talking about Congress, I give you the following concerning the E-Town Hall that our Repug PA-08 U.S. House Rep held recently (here)…

"We're thrilled it was a great turnout. The congressman answered 22 questions over the hour. We got about 60 questions, many of which were repeats. We covered a lot of ground," said executive editor Pat Walker (of the Bucks County Courier Times, which removed anything difficult did their best to avoid controversy thoroughly fluffed our congressman screened his questions).

Continuing…

Fitzpatrick (said) that job creation is his "number one priority" and that he meets every week with small businesses to discuss what they need to create jobs.

"There's general universal agreement that the primary source of new jobs is in the private sector, and shouldn't be in the public sector. That is why I have supported many efforts in the past four months to reduce the size of government, reduce spending, and create an environment where small business job creators can succeed," he wrote.

In response, I give you this once more…



Continuing…

On the subject of Medicare, Fitzpatrick said that "no person over the age of 54 years old will see any deduction or change at all in their Medicare benefits."

In response to a question about applying spending toward restoring roads, bridges and tunnels, Fitzpatrick said he just agreed to co-sponsor a bill that would invest in infrastructure.

Wow, this sure is some big-time “reporting” from Mikey’s PR service, isn’t it? So basically, according to Mikey, no one over 54 has anything to worry about (and why that number, I ask myself? How about 22? 87?). The trouble is, as has been pointed out over and over and over, the “Ryan Care” voucher a participant would receive on the dreaded day that Medicare is privatized would do nothing to contain costs of care.

And as far as Mikey co-sponsoring an infrastructure bill…well, more details would have been nice, wouldn’t it (such as the number of the bill, other co-sponsors, how the bill would be funded, etc.).

On top of that, if you want to hear something really disturbing, I’m hearing that the Repug poobahs in Harrisburg may redraw some of the districts in this state to favor a greater Repug voter registration, such as PA-08 (which would ensure that there was never a repeat of the scenario where Patrick Murphy barely lost Bucks in ’06, but defeated Fitzpatrick by taking just enough of the district from Philadelphia and Montgomery County).

Stay tuned.

Next, I had to impart this bit of comedy from the New York Times over the weekend concerning John Ensign’s legal troubles (here)…

The (Senate) Ethics Committee’s 68-page report…offers a blistering day-by-day account of what it portrayed as lies and deception, and an almost lurid description of (Ensign’s) affair and its consequences. It describes efforts by Mr. Ensign to keep the affair going even after Mrs. (Cynthia) Hampton pleaded to cut it off. The senator used multiple cell phone accounts and fired Mr. (Douglas) Hampton in part so that he could not track the senator’s schedule, the report said.

The report also catalogs efforts by the senator’s friends to keep him away from Mrs. Hampton. When the senator was caught in a Nevada hotel room with Mrs. Hampton after he had vowed multiple times to end the affair, he received an angry phone call there from Timothy Coe, a prominent Christian fundamentalist and adviser to Mr. Ensign.

“I know exactly where you are,” Mr. Coe reportedly told the senator, according to the Ethics Committee report. “I know exactly what you are doing. Put your pants on and go home.”

And this from a guy who once claimed that Bill Clinton “has no credibility left,” for the Monica Whatsername stuff (here).

Finally, I have some local Bucks County, PA (and Lower Makefield/Pennsbury in particular) stuff to discuss.

The other day, what should arrive at Le Manse Doomsy in the mail but a 56-page booklet on 8 ½ x 11 paper from teacher union antagonist Simon Campbell and his front group, Stop Teachers Strikes. It is full of anti-teacher cartoons and propaganda about “the public school employee pension crisis,” how “it pays to be a union boss,” and the evils of “compulsory unionism.”

The booklet also lists the salary, pension, and full benefit costs of every teacher, administrator and employee in the Pennsbury School District.

Mrs. Doomsy and I both looked at it and nearly fell over. And no, not because we were bowled over by the compensation of the district’s employees (truth be told, most of them are working more cheaply than I imagined).

No…we were astonished because we never imagined that anyone, even a human stain like Campbell, could do something so outrageous as to publish each employee’s compensation like that (to say nothing of the cost of publishing and mailing something like this throughout the school district). Yes, it is a matter of public record, but just imagine any college student entertaining a notion of whether or not they ever want to teach, knowing they could be subject one day to the same treatment.

And yes, the pension issue is a legitimate one. But how are teachers at fault who have paid into the fund for their whole careers, while politicians in this state and across the country have defaulted on their obligations on behalf of these public sector employees?

This makes it even more important that all of us in Pennsbury vote for Gene Dolnick, John Palmer, Jacqueline Redner, Gary Sanderson, and Linda L. Palsky for the school board tomorrow. It also tells me more than a little bit about Campbell, by the way, that, when you browse the Stop Teachers Strikes site, you can’t tell which Campbell-backed candidates are running for school board (Steve Kosmorsky, Chris Cridge, and Dorothy Vislosky).

Also, as noted here, there are many other fine Democrats on the ballot for tomorrow, including Diane Marseglia and Det Ansinn for County Commissioner. Also, please vote for Ken Seda and Ron Schmid for Lower Makefield Supervisor, along with Independent Ron Smith.

Update 5/17/11: I'm smacking myself in the forehead with an open palm at this minute for not pointing out that Ron Smith won't be on the ballot for LMT Supervisor until this November - my bad.